


At The Subterranean Vampire Cabaret

by ProwlingThunder



Series: Sinking Skipping Stones [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Priest (2011)
Genre: Alex (un)fucks Vampire Mountain, Alex Derails The Plot, Alternate Universe, Brothers, Crossover, Gen, Psychic Wolves, Telepathic Bonds, Teleportation Spells, Vampires, magic gone awry, soldier!xander, telepathic wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29404197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Something went wrong with the spell. Alex wasn't sure what; neither he nor his brother are sorcerers, and the only one they'd had to ask had made it very clear he wanted no part in their shenanigans.Which was a pity, because Giles probablywouldknow what had gone wrong, and why Alex wasn't looking at anything that evenremotelyresembled Sunnydale.
Series: Sinking Skipping Stones [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160072
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia





	At The Subterranean Vampire Cabaret

Might get a little messy

Might get a little heavy

Don't be late it's a hell of a show

[ _Subterranean Vampire Cabaret_ \- Brill Street Collective ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBb3Mx3azC0&ab_channel=BrillStreetCollective-Topic)

  
  
  


Something went wrong with the spell. Alex wasn't sure what; neither he nor his brother are sorcerers, and the only one they'd had to ask had made it very clear he wanted no part in their shenanigans.

Which was a pity, because Giles probably _would_ know what had gone wrong, and why Alex wasn't looking at anything that even _remotely_ resembled Sunnydale. It was hot, and dry, and pretty fucking barren, and also when he peeked through Aurore's eyes to avoid opening his own there was a fucking _mountain_ in front of them, weirder than anything he had ever seen, the sun baking down on everything--

 _Smells sick-slick-stick,_ Aurore assessed, pressing the scent of something heated to rancid while simultaneously being old, aged to the point of fossilization. Apparently that's the mountain. Joy.

Alex wrinkles his nose and groans, withdrawing from his brother and back fully into his own body. There isn't, currently, anything dangerous around them as far as Aurore can tell, so he takes the time to get up. Carefully, fully reaching out his senses to make sure he's still whole. Magic kind of sucks, and magic fucking up seems like it should fuck up other things, like the persons it was transporting. He _seems_ to be ok, if a little achy from laying on the ground. He presses the knowledge through their bond and the lingering question, gets affirmation back immediately. Of _course_ Aurore's fine, obviously, he's already done the check for himself, and of _course_ Alex is good too, or Aurore wouldn't be just laying here, would he?

Alex wonders what it says about them that both of these statements are true, that neither of them have questioned them, and that the sun is fucking _evil--_

He shades his eyes with his hand and squints up into the bold blue sky, stretching endlessly in every direction except the fossilized rot-mountain. _No clouds._

 _No water,_ Aurore agreed. Alex can smell how very much water there isn't, in the atmosphere, both in his own nose and in Aurore's. It doesn't smell like there has been any in some time.

_Fun._

Aurore huffed a laugh.

  
  
  


They had been aware that trying to magic themselves to their sisters could be dangerous, or even a one-way trip, so they had kitted themselves up for everything short of a full-scale war with actual-fucking-Xenomorphs, angled for long entrenchment more than long combat.

They're both carrying a couple pounds of water. Alex more than Aurore, because Aurore is the quick close-combat one of the pair. A wolf-kit doesn't consist of much. _Can't,_ actually. It's designed to be slim and light-weight, so it doesn't hamper or weight them badly, and there isn't much way to anchor a kit to them without a ton of fabric, which just gives something to hold onto them with. So aside from the water, Aurore only has a few spare knives strapped to him and a standard issue sword. Most wolves wont even consent to that. Some wont do _any kit at all,_ like Dawn.

Opposites of the spectrum, really. Aurore thought it was dumb and somewhat suicidal not to use him to carry _more._

Usually.

Right now, like Alex, he assessed that it was hot as _balls_ and it was fucking ridiculous to be wearing anything at all.

 _Sunburn,_ Alex popped that idea immediately, and then stretched the words, enunciating the sun and burn separately, the glowing death orb in the sky and _third degree burns, black, burnt meat and heat, "Third degree burns can destroy nerves," no pain._ Sometimes it's difficult, explaining complex medical issues to a wolf. On a Hellmouth like Sunnydale, especially. Anybody who had an injury that bad would have been on leave for a long time, if they ever got the chance to come back. Aurore's never had to deal with one, certainly, and Alex is glad for that.

Aurore doesn't understand it, obviously. But he knows _no pain_ isn't a good thing, not the way Alex wraps it up, drawing on the _lack_ where Buffy and Dawn should be connected to them, threaded through the Wolfmount pack and then, tighter, through the hunting pack and then even stronger through the litter-pack they had shared with their siblings. And then again, once more, because Aurore and Dawn had been _twins,_ curled up with each other in their mother's womb, sharing the same sack _._

The missing bond doesn't hurt, is the thing. It's just gone, except when it isn't.

Sometimes they can almost feel them.

Aurore doesn't suggest stripping again, thankfully. They keep walking, assessing the mountain as they go. The damned thing is massive.

As far as mountains go, it doesn't _look_ much like a mountain.

That makes it a problem.

  
  
  


Aurore hears the bikes first, then he feeds the whine of motors into Alex's brain through the bond until his brain is pretty sure he's hearing it, and then he _does_ hear it, but only after Aurore has seen the dust and draws his eyes to them. Plumes of sand kicked up high, higher than anything that makes sense, than anything should be able to kick up. But his brother can hear the engine and neither of them have any reason to doubt a wolf's ears, and so they wait until the plumes get smaller and the whine gets closer and then.

Well, then there are the bikes, slowing to a crawl and then stopping. They're steel-shiny and heavily industrial, like something from a sci-fi convention. Like a crotch-rocket only _armored_ like a damned tank.

In contrast, the people on them aren't. They're clad in black cloth and removing face-masks with tubing, which reminds Alex uncomfortably of movies with fighter pilots, flying at speeds and heights where they need oxygen pumped right into their system or they'll suffocate. He doesn't know any bike that moves that fast.

_Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore._

_Never in Kansas,_ Aurore pointed out, coming to lean against his leg for comfort. Alex reached down and buried his fingers in pale fur, watching the strangers as they dismounted. His brother's sense of danger was more fine-tuned than his own; Sunnydale was inherently good at damaging a human's perspective for that, as a Hellmouth, but Aurore was a predator and definitely _not_ a human. His instincts were razor-sharp, and only sharpened further by their birthplace.

And he thought these people were safe enough for him to sit his ass down on sun-baked earth.

 _Smells warm-safe,_ Aurore told him, but there was a shape to it that Alex didn't know, like Aurore was trying to determine all the scents he was sharing. They picked out the scent of thick blood, condensed and barely-warm copper. Viscera and ash. Steel. Candle-smoke, rose water. And something else, the scent that told Aurore they were safe. Something unidentifiable--

No. Not unidentifiable. But they'd only smelled it once (twice) before.

_Like sisters [Buffy/Dawn]._

Oh.

He didn't ask if Aurore was sure. Just lifted his hand out of thick fur and raised it in greeting, hoping to break the alien stand-off they had here, a team of people before him all _Slayers,_ each one of them. Not just the two women.

He doesn't need Aurore's nose to tell him they're women, either. At less than twenty feet, Alex's eyes work just fine even in the blinding sun.

_All Slayers. Fuck._

Aurore immediately assesses that several of them are probably Alex's _type,_ and Alex resists the urge to demand what _type_ he apparently _has._ It's successful mostly because the leader of the group opens his mouth to speak. There isn't much intonation as far as emotion goes, but Aurore tells him the man is prickling with curiosity and apprehension. "Why are you here?"

"Same reason you guys are?" Alex offered. Crazy huge mountain in a wasteland, a full assault team of Slayers, it was a safe enough bet to guess they were here _because_ of the crazy huge mountain, and he did not want to _guess_ what was in it. "And, uh, ladies. Sorry. It's a habit to say 'you guys'."

"We're priests," _Irritated_ says, her voice flat but her scent a fucking livewire, and Alex smiled at her while Aurore laughed.

"Cool." There are a lot of non-expressions at his words. They both can smell an ocean of confusion and other things bobbing in it like rafts gone adrift. He jabs a thumb behind him. "Mountain?"

The lead priest inclines his head. "Their queen is inside the hive." He glances at his cohort then, practically dismissing Alex altogether-- and he hasn't even glanced at Aurore, which is pretty odd. Aurore is massive, though a bit on the small side as far as wolfbrothers went, tall and thin instead of broad and stocky, lightweight even by the standards of lightweights. Giles had figured his bloodline came from old scouts, long-ranged hunters having to go far to follow the prey and then return quickly to let others know where the herds were before they could move.

He still outweighs most _people,_ though, and most people notice.

"We have our orders. Let's go." The priest marches right past him, leading his... What is a group of priests called? A congregation is the flock, so that can't be it, and there's never been more than one Slayer called at a time, so _Slayers_ feel wrong even just in thought. But they're beautiful, moving forward full of purpose, and Alex turns to watch them pass.

"Stay here," the priest adds, with barely a glance his direction.

 _Stay here?_ Aurore wrinkled his nose. There was distaste in him, a feeling of wrongness letting them go past without following, and his _refusal_ is bone-deep, held in check only by the awareness that they were _Slayers_ like their sisters and he and Alex were...

They were Slayers like their sisters. Slayers were called to hunt vampires, weren't they, and they were going into a nest as big as a god-damned _mountain_.

 _Yeah,_ Alex agreed, _fuck that noise._

  
  
  


They're not vampires.

Alex pelts through the tunnels of not-vampire cocoon spit at a dead run, following the scent of fresh air and sunlight in Aurore's nose. Down here he's blind without his brother, blind and mute and deaf down here in the dark, wrapped up so deep in the hunting bond that he's barely a separate body, just an extension of Aurore with two hands and a gun. When the wolf changes paths because an eyeless monstrosity is on all fours in the original path, Alex turns his pistol out and pulls the trigger in rapid succession, but he turns where Aurore leads and the sound of the priests' footfalls follow him.

None of them had listened to him when he'd tried to explain how wrong it all was, how it felt off, how it smelled. But they had felt it too, how wrong it was.

_It feels like our graves._

They lost one of the women in the soft loam. He had thought they were hunting a family of rogue vampires, but this...

These aren't vampires. Not in any of the ways Alex knows vampires.

He hopes she dies quick.

He hopes she dies.

Mostly he doesn't hope anything, because he's more wolf than person at the moment. He was from the moment she screamed and vanished into the sands. Direwolves are vampire hunters, more so than any human on earth except maybe the Slayer, and Alexander Harris gives himself to Aurore immediately and wholly without question. The first bullet blows the head off one and the satisfaction for it is tiny and quiet and buried deep in the depths of him that's still Alex. It doesn't distract Aurore, thankfully. But it's nice, the satisfaction. They know each other well enough that his brother knows how to prompt him for a kill.

Then the running starts.

The running is important.

Alex doesn't know much in the moment. He's there but not-there, he doesn't have the knowledge and reaction time needed to aid his brother in this, but he knows the running is important. He knows if they stop, they die.

Then he's out, wolf first, into the sun, and one, two, Alex counts from the quiet and buried depths.

Aurore doesn't. He _listens._ There's chittering and screaming and footsteps and then a yell, and someone goes back--

They lurch, the two of them. Someone grabs him by the arm, the human body, and Alex feels himself swell to fill his own body a bit, still more Aurore than anything, and he pulls on them because he has to _go--_

But nobody grabs the wolf.

He moves over two bodies, a huge paw in the back of the man. Moves over another body, and then another, and snaps his jaws closed on a muscled arm and _wrenches._ Bones snap. Alex tastes too-thick condensed blood in his mouth. He-- they-- Aurore snaps at a sightless face, reels back away from sharp teeth, bites another outstretched arm and digs his paws against the stone, nails gouging at it. Sharp claws grasp at fur. Something moves beneath him, inch by painful inch. There's a lot of blood.

One body is hauled out. The head priest. Then another, the one with wolf's eyes.

Alex elbows someone in the face and flings himself at the hole, rifle in hand and flattened on the ground, and he opens fire.

They wont take his brother. Not _his brother._

"Thank you. We owe you a life."

"You guys owe us _so much_ right now, but we'll start with stitches, a drink, and an explanation. _Fuck_ this hurts."


End file.
